Progressive policies to blame for unemployment

Recently, the Las Cruces Sun-News wrote an article covering the economic turmoil here in Doña Ana County. That should be of no surprise to our community because in the last decade Las Cruces has not seen much improvement. In January of this year, Las Cruces had an unemployment rate of 7.6 percent, just 0.1 percent lower than the current rate, and since 2008, it really has not been much better.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, since January of 2009, Las Cruces’ unemployment rate has hovered around 7 percent, hitting as high as 8.4 percent in 2009, ‘10, ‘11, and ‘13. In 2015 and 2016, the Las Cruces unemployment rate hit 8.2 percent, continuing the seemingly never-ending cycle of poverty in our community.

Like many people in Las Cruces, I frequently visit El Paso. I like to visit El Paso’s downtown, catch a Chihuahua’s game, and explore many of the new businesses that are opening their doors in the city. It seems as if every time I’m there, I see a brand-new business setting up shop. A short trip down to our state line shows a boom of businesses with one thing in common: all those booming businesses are all located on the Texas side of the border.

Texas’ and El Paso’s elected leaders, both Democrats and Republicans, have embraced business and have welcomed private industry into their communities. That doesn’t happen in Las Cruces, or really anywhere in New Mexico. Instead of supporting private industry, our local leaders rely on increased activity at White Sands Missile Range, or a hiring bump from NMSU or Las Cruces Public Schools to reduce our local unemployment rate to maybe 7 percent. We’ve settled for this for far too long. To make it simple - our city leaders have failed us.

Since the 2008 recession, Las Cruces and Doña Ana County have seen an infestation of elected “progressive” politicians who have repeatedly taken an anti-business approach to governing. They campaigned under seemingly Democratic values that could work with businesses, then turned their backs on those who elected them. It seems pushing their progressive agenda is more important than the well-being of their constituents.

Exhibit A - Councilor Gil Sorg, a city councilor since 2008 who is currently up for re-election, has repeatedly stated that he’s against increased development in Las Cruces. Not-so-coincidentally, since 2008, our unemployment numbers have sky-rocketed, and we don’t seem to be recovering anytime soon.

Exhibit B - Mayor Ken Miyagashima, who has been mayor for 10 years, was recently on KRWG for a radio show, to talk about the “state of the city.” When asked about the effects of the minimum wage on local businesses, he said, “When you have to pay higher wages, one of two things are going to happen; you’re going to reduce hours, or you may eliminate positions.” So, why did Mayor Miyagashima support the wage increase if he knew it would have a negative effect on the hardworking people of Las Cruces?

Over the last decade, many of these “progressive” local officials have enacted their “progressive” policies, including the dramatic hike of our city’s minimum wage from $7.50 to what will be $10.10 an hour in the span of a few years. What is even more disturbing is these “progressive” officials try to pull the wool over their constituents’ eyes by convincing them this will be good for them.

Michael A. Aguilar is the executive director of the Southern New Mexico Business Alliance, a local non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging economic growth and opportunity in our community (www.thealliancenm.org).